by Farkel 747 Replies latest watchtower scandals
Was there a later cruise and speaking tour in 1937 then? Because I was under the impression that WP Heath, Jr. accompanied Bonnie and the Judge on one in 1937 before going to Beth Sarim for the winter and then divorcing his first wife and marrying Bonnie in January (?) 1938.
~Merry
Well, there are the trips we know of for sure....
(1) The summer convention trip to Britain in 1936. Matthew A. Howlett, Bonnie Boyd, and Judge Rutherford returned to New York on the S. S. Statendam, departing from Southampton, England, on September 19, 1936. [scan]
(2) Later that fall, Rutherford and Bonnie Boyd presumably went to Beth Sarim to spend the winter. They then left San Diego and went on board the S. S. Santa Elena at Los Angeles, California, on May 1, 1937, where they sailed to Mexico, Panama, and Havana, Cuba (a pleasure cruise?) en route to New York. [scan]
(3) Then there was the big European convention trip mentioned by Farkel, in which Bonnie Boyd invited Berta Peale to join her and Rutherford. Berta, Bonnie, William P. Heath, Jr., and Rutherford returned from this trip on the S. S. Normandie, departing Le Havre, France, on August 25, 1937. [scan]
(4) Then presumably Bonnie, William, Berta, and Rutherford traveled to the West Coast to spend the winter at Beth Sarim that fall. Possibly that trip could have been done as a continental speaking tour. By early January 1938, William finalized his divorce and traveled with Bonnie to Las Vegas, Nevada to marry on January 25, 1938.
(5) Then, after returning to Bethel that spring, the gang (i.e. Bonnie, William, Berta, and Rutherford) went to on another European convention trip in summer 1938 and returned on the S. S. Queen Mary, leaving Southampton, England, on September 14, 1938. Now Bonnie is traveling as "Bonnie Heath". [scan]
The 15 July 1937 Watchtower has a detailed description of the planned conventions that year....There was an international convention in Paris, France, on August 21-23, 1937. This convention had 800-1,000 delegates coming from Britain and many from Switzerland as well. This was followed by the big U.S. convention in Columbus, Ohio on September 15-20, 1937. My guess is that Rutherford, Bonnie, William, and Berta continued westward to spend the fall and winter at Beth Sarim. The Watchtower article mentions that special trains were arranged through Southern Pacific Railroad to take delegates from California to Ohio and back. Perhaps the gang joined one of these groups to travel west to Beth Sarim. There were two trains arranged for California delegates: one that went to San Francisco and another that went to Los Angeles. It would make sense if they took the Los Angeles train and then had their own transportation to San Diego (perhaps after spending some time in L.A.?).
Now it is interesting that Berta would have been in Columbus that September. Do you think she paid her husband a visit in Akron, Ohio, to tell him its over? Or did she snub him completely?
Thanks for all that well-arranged info, Leo. You've been hard at work!
It's been so interesting to see it all unfold and come together piece by piece. It makes for quite a picture. The more we find out, though, the more questions seem rise to the surface.
Looking forward to more of both (answers and questions)...
~Merry
Excellent detective work!
Merry.....I was just checking again and found a comment in the 1 November 1937 Watchtower (p. 2) that may pose a problem; it describes the new booklet Safety as "containing the two recent public addresses by Brother Rutherford, that delivered at the recent general convention of the Lord’s people in Paris and entitled 'Comfort', and that radiocast from the Coliseum at Columbus, Ohio, on the occasion of the international convention there and entitled 'Safety' ". So does this imply that Rutherford did not personally attend the Ohio Convention? Why would he be absent from the big North American convention? Or does the remark mean that Rutherford did give an address at the Ohio Convention which was radiocasted across the country? Does anyone have access to the 1938 Yearbook or a convention report to tell for sure? Maybe I could check local Ohio newspapers from September 1937.
Of course, if Rutherford was absent, this would not entail that none of the others were not present.
A few odds and ends on the Heaths and Boyds:
(1) The 15 June 1925 Watchtower published a letter by Mrs. Susan T. Heath of Georgia. This was William Pratt Heath, Jr.'s mother, who became a Bible Student in 1915 (according to Athanasius).
(2) The passenger list for the S. S. Breman, sailing from Southampton on 6/25/1938, mentions William Pratt Heath (Sr.) of Roswell, Georgia. It indicates his DOB as 7/17/1876. That’s incidentally the same birthday as Bonnie Boyd Heath (wonder what she thought of having the same birthday as her father-in-law). Earlier in this thread I had found W. P. Heath Sr.’s draft card (submitted on 9/12/1918) which gave his DOB as 7/17/1875….a one-year discrepancy. The Biography and Genealogy Master Index has an entry for William Pratt Heath, Sr. (1875-1950), so I’m not sure which year is correct.
(3) Earnest said earlier in this thread:
Leolaia, the fact that Bonnie and her mother came to Bethel in 1923 (and that Rutherford became a father-figure) suggests that her father was either dead or divorced.
This seems quite possible. John R. Boyd of Black Hawk, Waterloo, Iowa appears in the 1895 Iowa Census and in the 1900 census, but I can't find him or the other Boyds on the 1910 and 1920 censuses. In the 1930 census, Victoria R. Boyd claimed "Wd" as her marital status, so she had been widowed sometime before then, but when is an open question. She was 17 years old at her first marriage, and since she was born in May 1872, that points to May 1889-May 1890 as when she married John R. Boyd. Their oldest child, Glen Boyd, was born in January 1891 (i.e. conceived April 1890).
But this is the real mystery....What prior connection was there between Bonnie and Victoria Boyd and the people in Bethel? If they were invited by William E. Van Amburgh, did they already know the secretary-treasurer? Or his wife Luie? Van Amburgh was chairman of several conventions held in the Midwest in the 1900s and 1910s, such as the 1904 St. Louis Convention and the 1913 convention in Madison, Wisconsin. Or did they know Rutherford (i.e. Iowa is not far from Missouri)? There was also a Benjamin H. Boyd in the 1920s who was a prominant pilgrim, traveling throughout the U.S. in the 1920s to give talks and lectures for the IBSA. Is there a relation between him and Bonnie (i.e. as cousin, uncle, etc.)?
I also wonder about a connection between Victoria Boyd and the Balkos of Texas, since Victoria lived in Texas for a while...at least in the 1940s.
And where did Bonnie and Victoria live prior to 1923?
I thought the easiest way to find this Benjamin H. Boyd is to search the WWI Draft Registration Cards, and there I found him: Benjamin Harrison Boyd, born 1/31/1889 in Uinta, Wyoming. He is specified as "Ordained minister, Associated Bible Students", living in Fort Smith, Sebastian, Arkansas. From the Family Data Collection, I also found that his father was George Frederick Boyd (born in 1849) and his mother was Violet Louise Tucker (born in 1862 in Arkansas), and that he was born in Lincoln, Cokeville, Wyoming. Whether there was a link between this Boyd and Bonnie now seems rather doubtful.
Another long shot is the fact that Glen Boyd gave his mother's maiden name as "Mann". This didn't fit well with Victoria Boyd's middle initial as "R.", but there was a William I. Mann (resident of Benwood, Marshall, West Virginia) who was the Vice President of the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society when it was incorporated in 1884. I know almost nothing about this person, and again I am very doubtful there is any connection at all but I thought I'd mention it in case this info is useful later.
I was just looking at the Moyle trial and found an interesting passage in the testimony of former Bethelite John G. Miller:
Q. And you know, don't you, that Bonnie Boyd has been the private secretary of [William] Heath for a good many years? A. Yes, I knew that. Q. Of Rutherford? A. Yes, sir. Q. Even prior to her marriage? A. Yes, sir. Q. And she continued to be his private secretary after the marriage? A. That I wouldn't say for certain because I don't know. Q. Do you know that even after the marriage the Judge traveled around and that Mr. and Mrs. Heath always went with him? A. No, that I don't know. Q. Do you know that they even went to California and stayed with him there? A. I don't know that. Q. Do you know that afterwards Mr. and Mrs. Heath had a home in California opposite in or near Mr. Rutherford's home? [Is this a reference to Beth Shan?] A. That is the first time I heard of it, your statement now. (pp. 664-665).
So this is how Bonnie and William got together. Now, at the time Bonnie became Heath's secretary, he was already married to Dorothy Smith. Did he have an extramarital affair prior to marrying Bonnie? According to Heath himself, he said that he became a Jehovah's Witness in 1932 and joined Rutherford's secretarial staff in June-July 1937, just prior to embarking on the Paris trip in August 1937 (pp. 1259-1260). Then he "became acquainted with Bonnie Boyd on the trip" to Europe and back, which lasted for two months, and he "worked near her" until he married her. Heath also said that he and his wife were not ever separated from Rutherford from that time until his death in 1942 (p. 1261). As for the trip West in 1937, Heath said he did not precede Rutherford but accompanied him, and explicitly mentions Rutherford's presence at the Columbus convention (p. 1267).
In the testimony of Grover C. Powell, it is also stated that "it was the custom of Mr. Rutherford to leave for his home in California about the month of November in each year and not return [to Bethel] until about May" (pp. 721-722).
I see from Bonnie's testimony how she got invited to Bethel, she says "my mother and I attended a convention and Mr. Van Amburgh asked me could I come in and help" (p. 1365). She says that her mother shared a room with her on the seventh floor (Rutherford's floor), where she worked as a housekeeper, until 1937 when she accompanied Bonnie, Rutherford, and William to California (p. 1366). Bonnie also says that from 1935 to 1937 only she, her mother, and Rutherford resided on the seventh floor (p. 1381). As for Berta Peale, Bonnie says that she became acquainted with her "ten years earlier" (i.e. 1933), and that she had been a JW for "about twenty years" (i.e. since c. 1923) (p. 1382).
I found this old post which has lots of info from larc, which deserves to be linked to this thread:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/66481/1031441/post.ashx#1031441
Leo,
There is a little bit of info on William I. Mann at the following link:
http://amazingforums.com/forum/HGREW/2.html
Check the beginning and the ending. The middle consists of Mann's articles in the Watch Tower. There is, sadly, no genealogical background on the man there.
Something struck me as kind of funny on the 3rd or 4th page of this thread. While considering the evidence and the timeline, some ex JWs here were saying 'Well, if she was 13 at this time and 23 at during that census than it definitely demonstrates that her age at the time of moving to Bethel would be 38 which is in agreement with the original statement that larc made." (not an actual quote, general impression) and it sounded SO Watchtower-y that I was LOL thinking that Fred Franz would probably consider it a 'fine' work that you all did in adding up the evidence:)
